Articles In Security

By Nancy Rand, Posted in Security

The U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) announced on September 4, 2018 that it has started a collaborative project to develop a voluntary privacy framework. The framework design for the enterprise will complement the NIST Cybersecurity Framework. At the same time NIST will be developing a legal and policy approach for the US “…for consumer privacy in coordination with the department’s International Trade Administration to ensure consi... read more.

• October 01, 2018

By Nancy Rand, Posted in Security

On May 17, 2018, the PCI DSS council published an updated standard. The updated standards document and summary of changes document are available at https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/document_library?category=pcidss&document=pci_dss This update consists of clarification statements to remove references to effective dates and Secure Socket Layer (SSL)/early Transport Layer Security (TLS) migration deadlines that have passed. No new requirements are added in PCI DSS v3.2.1. PCI DSS v3.2 remains valid th... read more.

• June 28, 2018

By Eduardo Blanco, CISSP, Posted in Security

The EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) goes into effect May 25, 2018, and much like in the months approaching Y2K nearly two decades ago, many organizations are still scrambling to fully understand its impact, relevance, and scope. GDPR is a unified set of laws that create stricter regulations for EU Subject data along with steeper penalties for non-compliance than the previous EU Data Privacy Directive it replaces. Some organizations may have to make sweeping changes to how they process and... read more.

• February 08, 2018

By Nancy Rand, Posted in Security

From Dark Reading on 1/24/18: Intel provided another update on advice for patching: https://newsroom.intel.com/news/root-cause-of-reboot-issue-identified-updated-guidance-for-customers-and-partners/ From Dark Reading on 1/23/18: Intel Says to Stop Applying Problematic Spectre, Meltdown Patch Cause of reboot problems with its Broadwell and Haswell microprocessor patching now identified, the chipmaker said. Intel is now advising its customers and partners to halt the installation of patches for its Bro... read more.

• January 24, 2018

By Nancy Rand, Posted in Security

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) finalized its Digital Identity Guidelines in December 2017 and published the following four documents: NIST Special Publication 800-63-3, Digital Identity Guidelines Presents an executive summary of the series along with a glossary. NIST Special Publication 800-63A, Digital Identity Guidelines, Enrollment and Identity Proofing Provides requirements for enrollment and identity proofing of applicants for access to resources at each Identity Assuran... read more.

• January 12, 2018

By Nancy Rand, Posted in Security

Earlier this week, the public was apprised of a major hardware vulnerability in Intel, AMD and ARM. This vulnerability affects practically every computer and mobile device in use today.   First and foremost, you should patch all devices up to the current releases to ensure you receive the latest protection combined with Endpoint Detection and Response software. The articles linked below present the information in detail.   The following Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) are associate... read more.

• January 05, 2018

By Hank Smith, Posted in Infrastructure, Security, Support

Throughout my years of IT consulting, patching servers and desktops has been a sore subject with customers. It’s always been something that is required, but in many cases not performed. The benefits of patching in a timely manner include feature enhancements, bug fixes, and of course security updates. But for many of our customers, patching is time-consuming and resource-intensive, and gets in the way of IT teams focusing on more strategic and tactical matters. As a result, patches aren’t maint... read more.

• December 21, 2017

By Ken Phelan, Posted in AppDev, Infrastructure, Security, Storage, Virtualization

Recently back from AWS:ReInvent, I’m still processing all the data. AWS is Amazon’s Web Services. Amazon is currently hosting 3 times more cloud services than their closest competitor (Azure), making them the 800 pound gorilla of cloud computing. AWS:ReInvent is the trade event they recently held in Las Vegas. Writing a blog helps me process, so here’s my blog about the show. Thanks for helping me process. First of all, ReInvent is huge. Content was being delivered in three different hote... read more.

• December 05, 2017

By Nancy Rand, Posted in Security

This year was once again filled with major security breaches. In fact, these breaches have impacted so many of us that they are becoming a routine fact of life for companies and individuals alike. The Equifax breach in particular affects practically every person or entity that has had a credit check done in recent years.  Protection of our personally identifiable information (PII) and financial information should have been a priority with a credit bureau. As we've seen, it was not. And of course... read more.

• November 30, 2017

By Tom Stanley, Posted in AppDev, Infrastructure, Security, Virtualization

The tech news has been abuzz recently with stories about how machine learning is making impressive strides in areas like autonomous vehicles, face recognition, and language translation. You can now be automatically tagged in Facebook photos of events you don’t even remember attending. But, while these are impressive achievements that may enhance some of your personal experiences, they have little bearing on your business. You might be surprised to find out these are just some of the more exciting appl... read more.

• November 10, 2017